Aviation Trail Celebration

One evening = Two Celebrations!

114th Anniversary of Powered Flight

100th Anniversary of McCook Field

Date: Saturday, 6:00 PM, December 16, 2017

Place: Hope Hotel, WPAFB

Aviation Trail, Inc. is celebrating the 114th Anniversary of Powered Flight with our annual First Flight Dinner honoring the Wright brothers achievements in 1903.

We are also proud to honor the 100th anniversary of McCook Field by awarding the 2017 Trailblazer to two “descendents” of McCook Field, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

McCook Field was an airfield and aviation experimentation station in Dayton, Ohio, operated by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, and its successor the United States Army Air Service from 1917 to 1927. It was named for Alexander McDowell McCook, an American Civil War general and his brothers and cousins, who were collectively known as “The Fighting McCooks.” A huge sign painted across the front of McCook’s main hangar prominently warned arriving pilots: THIS FIELD IS SMALL - USE IT ALL.

Above photo: Major W. Schroeder set 30,900-foot, two-man altitude record in a Packard-Le Peré LUSAC-11 Biplane at McCook Field, 24 September 1919

CLICK HERE to see more details on the 2017 Trailblazer Award and the 114th Anniversary of Powered Flight celebration on the 16 December 2017 Event Page on this website.